On 7 Sep, 18:56, "Paul Scott" wrote:
"Mr Thant" wrote in message

oups.com...

On 7 Sep, 14:03, wrote:
Could the reservation computer cope with that?

Surely it doesn't have to? As long as an F is always opposite a B, the
passenger for can just sit in whichever seat is facing forward or
backward regardless of which way round the set is. The reservations
computer never has to know.

(although on a Pendolino you'd also have the train's computer to
contend with)

But they don't give the options of F or B on newer trains with uniquely
numbered seats, which is the whole basis of the problem, they all show as A,
which leads to confusion - people have wrongly interpreted it as meaning
Aisle, or mistaken it for coach A.

Paul

True. Very True.
Or if you have people used to flying, they are off looking for seat
21A (must be in the same row as 21B 21C...)
I certainly believe that a reservation system, in 2007, should have
the ability to hold the following details:
Airline or Table seat,
Window or Corridor seat,
Quiet, Normal, Family (if available) Carriage or near the Bar,
and possibly Facing or Backwards seat. (This is difficult on some
trips, like CrossCountry, where trains may reverse 2 or 3 times,
particularly on the Bournemouth route)

But it's much like the following conundrum - why can't most of these
sites comprehend that I am buying tickets for 4 adults, one who owns a
YP railcard, and one who owns a Senior railcard.

Neither of these things is beyond a modern reservation engine. SNCF-
Voyages.com seems to handle most of it. Frankly, I think it is about
time one is able to nominate a seat. Many long-haul airline sites let
you chose your seat by clicking on the diagram of the airliner - and
unavailable seats are greyed out.
I understand Deutche Bahn allow you to nominate a seat on ICEs in some
circumstances, and they are certainly fine with different discounts
for different people.

But while TheTrainline.com has a de-facto monopoly (it seems all the
others license their system), nothing will happen. Particularly now
Trainline is owned by some venture capital firm or other - they have
absolutely no interest in spending money improving a product which has
the market by the balls, since they get little benefit out of
passenger satisfaction, while the TOCs get the bad publicity if
Trainline's crap web-app is unable to perform such basic tasks.

It has to be said, I don't know how much the underlying reservation
system can store - I know it was replaced a few years back, so one
would hope there are some custom fields available, but if ATOC
specified a like-for-like replacement....